


The Eyes That Witness

by McDonald195



Series: Lonely Rat [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Dishonored AU, Gen, Pre-Dishonored (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-14 12:12:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8013274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McDonald195/pseuds/McDonald195
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the Rat Plague hit Dunwall, the city has been in a steady state of decline. Rat is a young boy, the victim of constant abuse and poverty. As he hides from others in the network of alleyways throughout the city, he sees many things that will change his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Roseburrow Industries

Most people in the Isles would describe Dunwall as drab, a great expanse of grey split in two by the murky water of the Wrenhaven. Others would describe it as a place of opportunity, where one in a high place in society could thrive and live a life of luxury, so long as they didn’t mind stepping upon the people of the lower classes of Dunwall. And still others would call Dunwall a carnival of horrors, especially since the plague set, in, with a huge amount of people either locked inside their homes, stumbling around whilst the plague ravaged their being. 

And some of them scurried about through the dark, cold gutters of the city, sliding in and out of alleyways like shadows. To learn the back alleys of Dunwall was to learn how to survive against the many threats that daily life posed. And to a boy who was barely more than the rats he was named after, there were so many threats that they outnumbered everything else.

Rat scurried into an alleyway, trying to escape his pursuers. The older boys who liked to beat him with bats and rocks. Just thinking about them made Rat tempted to curl up in a dark corner and cry. He could remember their laughter, loud and cruel, echoing through his mind like a cacophony of hostile intent.  He remembered their grins, chilling to behold, as if knives had opened up wounds upon their faces. Rat felt afraid just imagining their cackling and beatings, the cold steel of the bat crashing down upon his chest, the sharp gleam of their knives as they threatened to cut him. Rat could no longer think of a way that they older children hadn’t abused him, and the adults were no better, laughing and kicking him when he tried to ask them for help or for work. Even working in one of the factories would be better than his life of poverty and fear. 

So he’d left the streets, where the older children and adults roamed like vultures descending upon a carcass, and taken to the back alleys. He’d overheard something once, to know the alleyways of Dunwall is to know how to survive, and so far this saying had proven true. He could usually avoid anyone if he stuck to the back streets, but he’d been frightened when he’d seen one of his bullies, a boy called Julian, beating a girl for her money. He’d kicked a bottle by mistake and been forced to run away as Julian and his cronies had recognized him and given chase. The one small shred of good fortune from the whole thing, Rat thought as he scrambled around a box, was that at least the girl might get away now. He tripped over a bottle, hitting the floor hard and rolling several times before coming to a stop. He scrunched his eyes, just managing to hold back tears. He climbed to his feet, used to pain by now and hobbled along. He couldn’t hear the older boys, and assumed that they’d given up their chase.

He stumbled out of a backstreet, and looked up to see a huge, dilapidated building standing before him. The Roseburrow Industries building, it had used to be thriving but since Anton Socolow became Esmond Rose burrow’s partner work had been moved elsewhere and the building had become less and less used. He'd been here before; there was a good hiding spot on the roof where none of the older children knew how to get to. He felt a scurrying close to his foot and looked down to see a white rat sitting by his right foot. 

"Hey there Snow." Rat said, picking up the tiny white animal and holding him up to look into his small blue eyes. "I missed you today." 

Snow squeaked and twitched his nose. Rat never knew whether the rodent could understand what he said, but he liked to think that he did, hence why he was always around Rat. He put Snow in his top pocket, as he always did. He set off, walking around to the side of the building where there was a seemingly permanent stack of wooden crates. He clambered up them, his thin arms straining as he pulled his slight frame up. As he climbed up some rusty old beams, he heard Snow squeaking disapprovingly. 

"Don't talk to me like that; we both know I'm not that strong." He complained as he reached the ledge where the large 'Roseburrow Industries' sign. Most of the letters were crooked, the lights were all broken except from the third R in Roseburrow and the first R and the T were missing. Rat crawled across the ledge behind the letters, and stopped when he was almost at the window behind the O. He didn't like to look through the window, he was always worried that someone would be in a meeting and see him, but given how understaffed the building had been recently, he figured he could risk it. 

He crawled up to the large oval window and looked through. There were no lights on in the office, the only light coming from the large full moon. It only just managed to illuminate the space around the desk. Rat could see a man sat behind the desk, his back to the window. Rat wondered who the man was; he could only assume that it was Esmond Roseburrow himself. His hair was graying and slightly unkempt, and from what Rat could see, the glasses were almost hanging off his face. The man was quite thin, not like Rat though, not from lack of food. Roseburrow rested his elbow on the table, holding a small blue cartridge at eye level, examining it with a curious stare. He moved the hand to a point where Rat could no longer see it. He wondered what Roseburrow was doing, and what the small cartridge had been. Rat craned his neck, trying to get a better look at what Roseburrow was doing. That was when the man raised his hand, a metal object clasped in his thin fingers, with a handle which fit snugly in his hand and a long barrel at the other end. The barrel glowed a stark blue light from the whale oil cartridge within. Roseburrow raised the object to his head, holding the tip of the barrel against his temple. Rat didn't know what to do, he was afraid now. He'd seen these things before; Overseers used them to stop bad people from hurting others. So why was Roseburrow pointing one at himself? Was he a bad man, like the bullies? Should he-- 

A loud bang and a bright flash stopped Rat in mid-thought. He jumped back in shock, almost falling from the ledge. He steadied himself, and then looked back at Roseburrow. He was slumped over the table now, and there was blood all over the table. Rat recognized blood well enough; he'd lost enough of it to know that it shouldn't be coming out of Roseburrow's head. A dark realization was settling in but Rat didn't want to accept it. He scrambled away from the window, he couldn't look anymore, and he had to get away. He ran back down the same way he'd come, shaking so much he almost fell. Roseburrow had just died, and Rat didn't know what to do, was it his fault? As he jumped to the ground, he doubled over and vomited. He was shaking and crying. He didn't know what to do with himself. So he did the only thing he could think to do. He ran down into an alleyway. 


	2. Dunwall Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several months have passed since the incident at Roseburrow Industries, and Rat has been plagued by nightmares. One day near Dunwall Tower, he has a chance encounter.

Sharp, loud bang. Bright, blue flash. Blood everywhere. Rat stood before Esmond’s slumped-over body, his eyes wide as blood slowly pooled over the desk from a hole in the man’s head. The gun lay beside him, Rat now recognizing the object for what it was. As Rat stood there, looking down at the lifeless body, it jerked and twisted, then slowly rose. Roseburrow looked at him with lifeless eyes as blood continued to pour over his body.

“You could’ve stopped me, boy. You could’ve saved me, you fucking rat!” Roseburrow exclaimed, reaching for Rat with hands dripping with blood. Roseburrow stood, the glowing gun now in his hand, he aimed the barrel at the boy. Rat screamed as the man pulled the trigger, and a blinding blue flash filled the room.

Rat sat up from his sleep, his thin body covered in sweat and dirt. He rubbed his eyes, trying to shake the sleep from his eyes. He’d been having that nightmare for several months now, ever since he’d witnessed Roseburrow’s suicide. He looked down at his thigh, where Snow was sitting, looking up at him with concern.

“I’m fine Snow, just another bad dream.” Rat reassured him, stroking his soft white fur. He knew that Snow liked to be stroked from the patch of fur between his ears all the way down to his tail in a single stroke; he’d learned that not long after he’d realized that Snow was following him. The little white animal was Rat’s only real friend; mainly due to all the other people he knew his age tried to kill him. Rat picked up Snow and placed him in the top pocket of his shirt, Snow’s usual perch. Rat wandered off down the alley, he was covered in dirt and sweat, and figured he could do with a clean. One of the perks of having been on the streets for so long was that he knew the city extremely well, and knew where to go to find the cleanest water. Since the plague had hit Dunwall, a person couldn’t simply go wherever they wanted to find water to clean with, as most of the water had a chance of giving you the plague recently.

He walked to the end of an alleyway, and peered out into the road, looking for bullies or tallboys. They had no reason to fire on him, but that hadn’t stopped them in the past. Once he’d checked that the street was clear, he scampered across the street. He looked up as he ran, spotting Dunwall Tower as he ran. After a few more minutes of running, he found his water spot, a large pipe which ran from the Tower; there was always clean water here. He stripped down, making sure there was nobody around before he did so, he couldn’t help being shy about his slender body. He washed off all the grime, before drying himself off with the rag that he kept in the area. Once he was all clean, he sat on a box with Snow sitting beside him.

“So what now?” Rat asked Snow, looking down at the small animal. Snow looked up at him, squinted his blue little eyes, twitched his nose and squeaked quizzically.

“Yeah, we probably should go find some food.” Rat said. He hopped off the box, picking up Snow and putting him in his top pocket. They wandered off, through the alley’s around Dunwall Tower. Eventually, after a few hours of searching, Rat sat in a small space between a wall and some sheet metal with some pieces of bread and some scraps of Serkonian blood sausage he’d found in the garbage near an Overseers house. As he was about to dig in, he hear shouting from the road nearby. He looked around for the source of the noise, and spotted a group walking down the street. He almost spat out the bread when he recognized who it was. He’d seen Empress Kaldwin before in pictures but never in person. She was very beautiful, far prettier in person. Next to her Rat saw the Lord Protector, Corvo Attano. He looked scary, with his long black hair and scowl. They were with a group of City Watch guards with them, and they were all calling out for someone called Emily. Rat vaguely remembered hearing talk of the Empress’ daughter before, but he’d never seen her.

“Hi there.” Rat was startled, and almost fell over. He turned around sharply, only to find a young girl sitting cross-legged behind him.

“Um. Hello.” He said, unsure of what to do. Over all the years, none of the other children had ever said anything like 'Hi'. He looked over the girl, trying to judge who she might be. She was wearing a very clean white dress, Rat had never seen anything so clean, so she definitely wasn't from the street like he was. 

"Are you alright? You're staring at me." The girl said. Damn, Rat thought, how are you supposed to interact with people?

"Who are you?" Rat asked, internally cursing himself. He couldn't have sounded more rude if he'd tried. 

"My names Emily, what's yours?" She said, smiling. 

"Oh um. I don't really have one." Rat mumbled. 

"What do you mean? Surely your parents gave you a name?" Emily said, confused. 

"I didn't really know them."

"Oh, I- I'm sorry." Emily stammered.

Rat shook his head. "It's okay, everyone just calls me Rat." 

"That's a funny name." Emily giggled. When she noticed Rat's saddened expression, she added. "I like it, it's cute." 

Rat chuckled. "Thanks, nobody's ever said something nice like that before." He looked back to the road. "Are you the Emily that they're looking for?"

Emily smiled. "Yep, I was playing hide and seek with Corvo, and I managed to sneak out of the garden. He'll never find me now." 

"They sound worried about you. I don't think they're still playing." He said. 

"I'm just talking with my friend, there's no reason to worry." She smiled. 

"Oh, I didn't realize you had a friend around, I'll leave." Rat said, sad that Emily would be leaving.

"No silly." She giggled. "You're my friend." 

Rat was shocked. He'd never had a friend before, besides Snow that is. He smiled, properly for the first time in years. 

"Really? Thank you, I've never had a friend before." 

"That's alright, I don't have many friends, I don't leave the tower very often so I don't meet many people my own age. The kids I meet are all fancy and boring and all they talk about is all the things they've done." 

Rat laughed. "Well I haven't done much worth talking about. What about you? You must do lots of things." They must've talked for at least an hour, Rat thoroughly enjoyed listening to Emily talk about her life, it sounded far more exciting than his life, and far more pleasant. She told him about her mother, the Empress and her friend Corvo. She told him about some of the parties she'd been to with her mother, and the interesting people she'd met.

"I'll speak to mother, maybe I could bring you to a party. Then I'd have someone to talk to."  

“Thank you, I’d like that.” Rat smiled broadly.

Suddenly, there was a crash behind Rat that made him jump out of his skin. A man stood behind him, glaring down at him. He pushed Rat out of the way and knelt down before Emily. 

"Emily, are you alright? Are you hurt?" He asked, his voice hoarse from calling out her name. He turned back to glare at Rat. "Did he hurt you?" 

Rat crawled away till his back was against the wall. He knew the man, Corvo Attano, the Lord Protector. Corvo stood over Rat, ready to strike if the boy had hurt Emily. 

Emily said hurriedly. "No Corvo, I'm fine. He didn't hurt me, he's my friend." The man's scowl deepened, then softened a little. He walked back to Emily. 

"Come on Emily, your mother's worried half to death. She'll want to know you're alright." He lead Emily back towards the Tower. As they were about to leave the alleyway, she turned back.

"Bye Rat. Maybe I'll see you again sometime soon." Corvo lead her away, back towards the Tower. 

"Bye." Rat called feebly after her. He sighed, as Snow scurried out from behind a box where he'd been hidden. He squeaked up at Rat, his head cocked to the side quizzically.

"She was nice, wasn't she Snow?" Rat said, picking up Snow and stroking the fur of his back. He hoped she would be able to see Emily again at some point, it would be nice to have a friend who could actually talk back to him. 


	3. Dying Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several months have passed since Rat first met Emily, and he's enjoyed spending what little time he can with his new friend. Unfortunately, Dunwall is a cruel place, and rats often find themselves becoming prey.

Climb up the stacked crates, climb up the chain, duck under the wall where the fat guard walks by, and wait behind the bushes near the side door. It was a routine with which Rat had become ever so familiar these past few weeks. He'd taken to spending a lot of time on rooftops, particularly the ones surrounding Dunwall Tower, so he could check to see whether he could go visit Emily. He'd memorized the layout of the castle, the patrols the guards would take throughout the day, and which window Emily would signal him from. The process was always the same, she would flash light off of a handheld mirror when she wanted to see him, and he'd always be there within a half hour.

Rat always enjoyed their time together, as it turned out, Emily was far more adventurous than he'd originally given her credit for. The two of them often found themselves exploring the city, running around the rooftops and climbing throughout the city. They did still sit and talk every now and again, and Rat had such fun talking to her, hearing about her life in the Tower and the many parties she went to with her mother and Corvo. She'd told him about a party they'd been to only a few weeks ago, where an assassin had attempted to kill the empress, but Corvo had stopped the man. 

"Corvo sounds scary." Rat had told her, as they sat on a rooftop and swung their legs over the edge over the side. He remembered when the two of them had been found by Corvo when they first met. The Lord Protector had certainly earned his fearsome reputation, it was a wonder that any assassin would dare even considering an attempt on Empress Kaldwin. 

"He's not so scary if you get to know him. He's just scary to other people when they try to hurt mother." Emily had replied, unrolling a small bundle she'd brought with her, containing some bread and sausage for Rat to eat. He was eternally grateful to Emily for that. Though it wasn't much for her, it was the best food he'd ever had. He'd actually began to grow a little stronger recently, since he could actually get some nutritious food, together with the exercise involved with getting to their meeting points. Rat wasn't quite as sickly and thin as he once had been. 

Today was one of the many days where he assumed that she was busy with a meeting or some party or something. He sighed, he knew he couldn't see her every day, but he always hoped he could see her more often. Rat turned and ran, moving around the city, scurrying around the roofs and back alleys like the vermin he was compared to. Another benefit to his time with Emily was that he'd learned about the best places to get food from, such as the butchers where he now found himself. Emily had taken him in one time they'd been together and they'd found a nice quiet spot to enjoy Serkovian Blood Sausage ad other different meats.

He stopped as he was about to turn the corner into the alley way, as he heard young voices from further down. Looking around the corner revealed three figures, boys not far from adulthood. They seemed to be minding their own business, drinking what looked to be Gristol Cider which they'd likely stolen from their wealthy parents. They looked harmless enough, but Rat knew first hand that people in Dunwall could change quickly. 

Rat sat at the corner, hoping they would leave soon as his stomach growled and he curled up, tucking his knees in to his chest as he waited. After almost an hour, he heard the boys leave and he stood, scampering down the alleyway and began riffling through the food the butcher had thrown out that day. 

"Look at that, Snow." Rat grinned as he grabbed a half empty tin of Dabokva Whale Meat, and started eating the contents, prying open the tin as much as he could as he buried his fingers inside to pull out as much food as he could. 

A sharp pain erupted against the side of his head, as he was sent tumbling down the alley, his tin falling with a clatter to the floor. Despite his blurry vision, he could make out three figures, slowly advancing towards him. As he struggled to get up, he felt a foot slam into his stomach, with such force that he was sure that he felt something break. He coughed, spitting blood over the ground as he looked up and recognized the boys from before. Apparently they'd gotten bored simply sitting around and had decided to take out their boredom and frustration on him. 

Rat tried to stand, to fight back, but the pain made it difficult. A hard boot landed on the small of his back, pushing him back to the floor and pressing him into the dirt. They laughed as they kicked him, as Rat felt his body being beaten and broken. He tried to call out, or plead for mercy, but he couldn't even do that. He’d been beaten up before, for someone like him it was almost inevitable, but this was savage. One of them stamped on his leg, cracking the fragile bone beneath the hard boot. It felt like the beating lasted forever, but eventually they gave one last kick, and then ran off down the alley. Rat coughed, blood spattering out against the floor as he tried to stand. He wanted to get out of the open, to try to find somewhere quiet. He was no doctor, but he knew that there was a lot blood around him, soaking into his thin clothes and staining the dirty floor beneath him. He tried to stand, but whimpered with pain as he put weight on the broken leg, falling back to the ground. Rat dragged himself, gritting his teeth as his snapped bone screamed pain at him, bringing tears to his eyes. 

There was a particularly dark alley way before him, which he scrambled for, desperate to hide from those who would hurt him. Rat pulled his frail body into the darkness, seeking solace in the sweet relief of the shadows before him. As he crawled deeper into the alley, he noticed it was not as dark as he had thought, as there was a strange, white light flickering before him. He looked to his side, as Snow scampered to him. His fur was tainted red, with flecks of Rat’s blood having dotted over the tiny animals side. The light got brighter, and he looked up to see its source.

Rat had only heard stories about shrines like this one, crudely constructed from broken pieces of wood and wire, with lamps dotted around. Atop the shrine was a roughly circular looking object, which almost looked like bone with pieces of metal attached and symbols carved into it. 

He curled up into a ball. He knew that with his injuries he probably wouldn’t last too long. Snow lay down beside him, and Rat took comfort that at least he had a friend with him. He was sad that he wouldn’t be able to see Emily anymore, or even tell her what had happened. She’d just not see him again, and likely forget about him at some point. He couldn’t tell at this point what was running down his cheeks, whether it was tears or blood, but at that point it almost didn’t matter. His eyes slowly fluttered shut, as the world gradually faded from his view. He felt cold as his eyes closed, and knew that this was the end.


End file.
